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Instablog9ja
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A lady has polarized opinions with her attempt at recreating an outfit worn by actress Osas Ighodaro at the 2024 AMCVA.
She shared pictures of herself wearing the outfit she made as she attempted to replicate what she felt was a similar outfit of her icon.
Investopedia
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After Costco Wholesale (COST) reported fiscal third-quarter earnings that beat analysts' estimates, executives joined the company's earnings call Thursday to discuss its membership pricing, digital sales growth, its recently expanded partnership with Uber (UBER), and how lowering prices has affected discretionary spending, among other things.
Thursday's call was also notably the first under new CFO Gary Millerchip, a former Kroger (KR) CFO who took over for Richard Galanti in March.
For another consecutive quarter, Costco said it is holding its membership prices steady, though Millerchip repeated Galanti's long-used line that it's still a matter of "when, not if" the retailer raises membership prices.
Through much of Costco's history, the company raised its membership prices every five years on average, and it's now been nearly seven years since its last price hike.
Costco's two membership tiers are currently $60 and $120. The company has said in recent quarters that with strong renewal rates and overall membership numbers, leadership hasn't felt the need to adjust membership prices and risk negatively affecting those numbers. Costco had 74.5 million members at the end of the third quarter, up from 73.4 million last quarter, 69.1 million at this time last year, and about a million more than analysts had expected.
Costco CEO Ron Vachris said Thursday that while a price increase may seem unnecessary given how healthy the business is, an incremental bump would give Costco a cushion of additional revenue that could allow them to lower prices on products across the store, saving customers money over time.
"That's one of the key parts that we use that money for is that it allows us to broaden that distance from the competition and bring greater values and improving our operation overall for the member," Vachris said.
Like a number of other retailers in recent weeks like Target (TGT), Walgreens (WBA), and Walmart (WMT), Millerchip said Costco has lowered prices over the quarter, and plans to continue doing so. One of the key elements of Costco's value proposition is the lower average cost per item when it comes to buying in bulk, so lowering prices even further could drive sales up even more.
As Costco has lowered prices and inflation has slowed, Millerchip also said the company has seen increases in discretionary spending in the quarter, at a time when many of America's largest retailers have seen a decline in discretionary spending.
Target and Walmart noted a pullback in discretionary spending in their recent earnings reports as inflation influenced customers' habits, but Millerchip and Vachris said Costco's value and unique deals have given way to more discretionary spending and a larger market share.
Costco has worked to catch up digitally after historically being slow to adapt to certain trends like online shopping, with its efforts paying off as e-commerce sales grew 20.7% in the quarter compared to the same period a year ago.
The retailer has expanded certain programs like buying products online and picking them up in-store, as well as its partnerships with tech companies like Instacart (CART) and Uber. Costco has had a yearslong partnership with Instacart to offer grocery delivery to customers, and it recently expanded its partnership with Uber.
Previously, Uber Eats delivered Costco products in test markets around Texas, but the partnership recently expanded to 17 states in the U.S. and all of its Canadian locations, with plans to continue expanding across the U.S. and Costco's other international markets, Millerchip said.
Costco opened a pair of new locations in the U.S. in the quarter as well as two more since the quarter ended, with plans to open a total of 12 more in the fourth quarter of 2024, with nine new locations planned in the U.S. along with two in Japan and one in South Korea. Meeting those opening schedules would mean a total of 29 new locations in the fiscal year, and Millerchip said he believes a range of 25 to 30 new locations per year is a reasonable expectation going forward.
Millerchip said during Thursday's call that the company still sees "significant runway" to continue growing by opening stores across the U.S. and internationally, and believes they will be able to do so without "cannibalizing" too many members from nearby locations when opening new stores.
"It is creating capacity for our members that are shopping very busy warehouses today, to be able to shop more frequently and drive more engagement with us and also it increases membership renewal rates over time," Millerchip said.
Costco shares were 1.5% lower at $803 in extended trading as of 8 p.m. ET Thursday following the company's earnings call.
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Kuryliuk
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Instablog9ja
4 hrs
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The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have declared a nationwide strike beginning from Monday, June 3rd, 2024 over the tripartite committee’s inability to agree on a new minimum wage and hike in electricity tariff.
The President of the TUC Festus Osifo announced the strike at a joint news conference with the leadership of the NLC in Abuja on Friday. According to the labour leaders, the decision follows the expiration of an earlier request to the Federal Government to conclude all negotiations for a new minimum wage before the end of May.
“In light of this persistent inaction, we, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), hereby issue a notice of commencement of an indefinite nationwide strike to the Federal Government,” Osifo said. “We reiterate that since the National Minimum Wage negotiation exercise has not been concluded and the agreed wage passed into law; the hike in electricity tariff has not been reversed and the categorization of consumers into Bands has not stopped as demanded; Nigerian workers are compelled by these failures to embark on an indefinite nationwide industrial action beginning on Monday, the 3rd of June, 2024 to press home our demands.”
The organised labour had once pulled out of the negotiation and rejected two Federal Government offers, the latest being N60,000. They are insisting on N497,000 as minimum wage. [Swipe]
4 Key Takeaways From Dell Technologies' Earnings Call
After Dell Technologies (DELL) Repo...
Investopedia
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After Dell Technologies (DELL) reported fiscal first-quarter revenue and earnings that beat analysts' estimates, executives joined the company's earnings call to discuss Dell's guidance, margins, artificial intelligence (AI) server backlog, and AI opportunities.
On the call, Dell provided guidance for the second quarter, the full 2025 fiscal year, and the infrastructure solution group (ISG) segment.
CFO Yvonne McGill said Dell expects second-quarter revenue to be between $23.5 billion and $24.5 billion, slightly above analysts' estimates compiled by Visible Alpha.
McGill also told investors that Dell raised its full-year outlook to between $93.5 billion and $97.5 billion, up from the range of $91 billion to $95 billion provided the quarter prior. Consensus estimates put full-year revenue expectations at $94.07 billion.
The CFO said Dell expects its ISG business to grow "in excess of 20% fueled by AI," consistent with analysts' projections.
When asked about Dell's AI server backlog, Dell COO Jeff Clarke said "[looking] at the composition of our backlog, it's primarily Nvidia-based."
He said that while H100 availability is better, H200 supply is expected to improve in the second half of the year while B200, Nvidia's Blackwell server, is now in production.
Nvidia's supply has been unable to keep up with surging demand amid the AI era, and analysts have indicated the already high demand for the chipmaker's new products likely means Blackwell is sold out into 2025 as Hopper supply improves.
Clarke said Dell's AI server backlog includes enterprise customers as well as some large cloud service providers.
Clarke told investors "We can do better in both our traditional servers and our storage products in terms of margins."
Dell reported that its gross margin declined 4% from the year-ago period, with McGill citing "a more competitive pricing environment and a higher AI optimized server mix." The CFO said that the decrease in gross margins drove a decline in operating income, which fell 14%.
She also noted that the first quarter is typically the weakest in terms of profitability for the ISG segment, and suggested the company expects to see operating margins expand in its ISG business as the year progresses, driven by enterprise customer spending rebound and scaling opportunities.
Dell executives reassured investors that the company could be well-positioned to gain as enterprise customers integrate AI, with Clarke saying Dell is "uniquely positioned to help customers with artificial intelligence," and noting that "strong AI momentum continues."
Dell's AI-optimized server orders increased to $2.6 billion in the quarter, compared to $800 million in the final quarter of fiscal 2024.
Clarke also highlighted Dell's "open ecosystem of partners" including Nvidia, Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Hugging Face. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called out Dell during the chipmaker's earnings call last week as an important partner.
Dell shares were down 18.2% at $139 in extended trading Thursday following the company's earnings call.
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Healthwatch
5 hrs
19
Should a woman consider having her fallopian tubes removed to lower her risk for developing ovarian cancer? Recent recommendations from the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA), endorsed by the Society for Gynecologic Oncology, encourage this strategy, if women are finished having children and would be undergoing gynecologic surgery anyway for other reasons.
Why is this new guidance being offered?
Ovarian cancer claims about 13,000 lives each year, according to the American Cancer Society. The new guidance builds on established advice for women with high-risk genetic mutations or a strong family history of ovarian cancer.
This idea isn't new for women at average risk for ovarian cancer, either: in 2019, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) floated this strategy in a committee opinion.
A Harvard expert agrees the approach is sound, considering established evidence that many cases of aggressive ovarian cancers arise from cells in the fallopian tubes.
"We've known for a long time that many hereditary cases of ovarian cancer likely originate in lesions in the fallopian tubes," says Dr. Katharine Esselen, a gynecologic oncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "Although we group all of these cancers together and call them ovarian cancer, a lot actually start in the fallopian tubes."
Can ovarian cancer be detected early through symptoms or screening?
No — which helps fuel these recommendations.
Ovarian cancer is notoriously difficult to detect. Symptoms tend to be vague and could be related to many other health problems. Signs include bloating, pelvic pain or discomfort, changes in bowel or bladder habits, feeling full earlier when eating, fatigue, unusual discharge or bleeding, and pain during sex.
Disappointing results from a large 2021 study in the United Kingdom reported in The Lancet show that lowering the risks of a late-stage diagnosis isn't easy. The trial tracked more than 200,000 women for an average of 16 years. It found that screening average-risk women with ultrasound and a CA-125 blood test doesn't reduce deaths from the disease. By itself, the CA-125 blood test isn't considered reliable for screening because it's not accurate or sensitive enough to detect ovarian cancer.
Only 10% to 20% of patients are diagnosed at early stages of ovarian cancer, before a tumor spreads, Dr. Esselen notes. "There's never been a combination of screenings that has reliably identified the majority of these cancers early, when they're more treatable," she says.
What does it mean to be at higher risk for ovarian cancer?
Family history is the top risk factor for the disease, which is diagnosed in nearly 20,000 American women annually. A woman is considered at higher risk of ovarian cancer if her mother, sister, grandmother, aunt, or daughter has had the disease.
Additionally, inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene raise risk considerably, according to the National Cancer Institute. (These mutations are more common among certain groups, including people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.) While about 1.2% of women overall will develop ovarian cancer in their lifetime, up to 17% of those with a BRCA2 mutation and up to 44% with a BRCA1 mutation will do so by ages 70 to 80.
How much can surgery lower the odds of ovarian cancer?
It's not clear that all women — even those not scheduled for surgery — should undergo removal of their fallopian tubes to reduce this risk once they finish having children, Dr. Esselen says. This surgery can't totally eliminate the possibility of ovarian cancer — and surgery carries its own risks. She recommends discussing options with your doctor depending on your level of risk for this disease:
For those at average risk for ovarian cancer: Available data seem to support the idea of removing the fallopian tubes. Studies of women who underwent tubal ligation ("tying the tubes") or removal to avoid future pregnancies indicate their future risks of ovarian cancer dropped by 25% to 65% compared to their peers. And if a woman is already undergoing gynecologic surgery, such as a hysterectomy, the potential benefits likely outweigh the risks.
Before menopause, removing the fallopian tubes while leaving the ovaries in place is preferable to removing both. That's because estrogen produced by the ovaries can help protect against health problems such as cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. Leaving the ovaries also prevents suddenly experiencing symptoms of menopause.
"The fallopian tubes don't produce any hormones and aren't really needed for anything other than transporting the egg," she says. "So there's little downside to removing them at the time of another gynecologic procedure if a woman is no longer interested in fertility."
For those at high risk for ovarian cancer: "In a world where we don't have good screening tools for ovarian cancer, it makes sense to do something as dramatic as surgery to remove both ovaries and fallopian tubes when a woman is known to be at higher risk because of a strong family history or a BRCA gene mutations," Dr. Esselen says.
Currently, preliminary evidence suggests it may be safe to proactively remove the fallopian tubes while delaying removal of the ovaries to closer to the time of menopause to avoid an early menopause. However, it's unclear how much this procedure lowers the odds of developing ovarian cancer.
"Generally, the findings so far have focused on the safety of the surgery itself and women's quality of life," Dr. Esselen says. "Long-term data in high-risk women takes a great number of years to accumulate. We need this data to know whether removing the fallopian tubes alone is equally effective in preventing ovarian cancer as removing the tubes and ovaries."
Discussing your options is key
Ultimately, Dr. Esselen says that she advocates OCRA's new recommendations. "For anyone who's completed childbearing, if I'm doing surgery that wouldn't necessarily include routinely removing their fallopian tubes, I'm offering it," she says. "A woman and her doctor should always discuss this at the time she's having gynecologic surgery."
Source: Harvard Health Publishing
